Germans moot cyberspace regulations | 25 June |
Edzard Schmidt-Jotzig, the German Justizminister, has revealed that a new set of Cyberspace regulations will be introduced later this year. According to officials with the Justizministerium, the legislation will free Internet service providers (ISPs) in Germany from having to be responsible for policing their services for pornography and/or neo-nazi information. The legislation is similar to that currently being proposed by the European Commission (EC), and will only allow prosecution where it can be demonstrated that the ISP was aware of such transgressions, yet did nothing about it. Sources suggest that the legislation could take some time to be debated by the Bundesrat, as several states in Germany are known to favor the introduction of their own more rigorous rules. Such legislation may not have come in time for German Internet users, Newsbytes notes. Several ISPs in Germany are now spooling a mirror of their outbound Usenet feed to the de-cix site. According to reports from Germany, all postings to newsgroups will "occasionally" be checked for compliance with German laws. Plans call for a so-called Internet Content Task Force (ICTF) will be able to either cancel unwanted postings or even bar whole newsgroups from access in Germany. Plans also call for the ICTF to support any investigations carried out by the legal German authorities with their log files. Further details (in German) can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.eco.de/. The announcement of plans to introduce Internet legislation confirms plans announced last month that no draconian Internet-specific legislation would be introduced. As reported last month by Newsbytes, Juergen Ruettgers, the popular German research and technology minister, said that the Internet service provider (ISP) industry in Germany should be able to regulate its own affairs, rather than rely on the government for stringent controls. Ruettgers said at the time that the German government would not tolerate the distribution of neo-Nazi propaganda, child pornography, or other such information in the Internet. He told journalists that such information distribution is already outlawed under German law, so there is no need for Internet-specific legislation. Ruettgers admitted, however, that the current mood in the US surrounding the Internet is such that the German government is under pressure to act on the perceived problem. He also noted that the various state governments could use the issue to strengthen their own legislation, and so damage the expansion of the Internet in Germany. According to Ruettgers, the best way to encourage the creation of new jobs in the fledgling ISP industry in Germany is to leave it well alone as regards regulation. Any legislation that is required, he said, could be integrated fairly easily into the current crop of laws being introduced this year in preparation for the open competition rules mandated by the European Commission (EC) for January, 1998, introduction. (Sylvia Dennis/19960624) |
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From the NEWSBYTES news service, 25 June |